Thread: Colo. State Patrol Begins Enforcing Immigration

Jul 2, 2007 9:00 pm US/Mountain

Colo. State Patrol Begins Enforcing Immigration

Terry Jessup
Reporting

(CBS4) DENVER The Colorado State Patrol has begun enforcing immigration laws.

A special unit of 22 members has finished a five-week training program and started their new duties. The patrol's Immigration Enforcement Unit is the first of its kind in Colorado and now has the authority to process and detain suspected illegal immigrants. Previously, only U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had the power to do that.

The state patrol said they will use their expanded authority mostly to target criminals who use the state's highways for drug-smuggling and human trafficking.

"Merely the fact that someone may be undocumented and in the country illegally is not going to trigger us to take them into custody alone," Sergeant John Oliver with state patrol said. "Our main focus is smuggling and trafficking of our criminal aliens, the real bad guys we really want to make sure we remove from the country."

But not everyone's comfortable with what immigrant rights' groups see as the federalization of local law enforcement.

"We had a gentleman in Alamosa last week pulled over who was a U.S. citizen and he was pulled over because of the color of his skin," Julien Ross with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said. "And because he couldn't prove he was a U.S. citizen in that instance, he was taken to the immigration office where he later was released because he was a U.S. Citizen. This is that type of profiling and discrimination that we fear will occur now with the state patrol policies."

The patrol responds that racial profiling is illegal and will not be tolerated. They said they will still be focusing primarily on traffic violations and not driving around looking for loads of Hispanics to pull over.

There are similar units in 17 other states. The officers in the new unit have each taken five training exams and been a member of the state patrol at least two years.

http://cbs4denver.com/local/local_story_183230319.html

This is a very good start. Let's hope it snowballs.

"We had a gentleman in Alamosa last week pulled over who was a U.S. citizen and he was pulled over because of the color of his skin," Julien Ross with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said

.

How can she possibly know he was pulled over because of racial profiling?

And, I hope this snowballs, too. Just the fact that it is going into effect is going to have an inhibiting affect on illegals who are driving on the highways.

"Merely the fact that someone may be undocumented and in the country illegally is not going to trigger us to take them into custody alone," Sergeant John Oliver with state patrol said.

Are you saying you're going to let illegals stopped on the highway that aren't smuggling or wanted go free?

"We had a gentleman in Alamosa last week pulled over who was a U.S. citizen and he was pulled over because of the color of his skin," Julien Ross with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said. "And because he couldn't prove he was a U.S. citizen in that instance, he was taken to the immigration office where he later was released because he was a U.S. Citizen. This is that type of profiling and discrimination that we fear will occur now with the state patrol policies."

Okay, let me see if I got this straight - the guy was driving without a valid driver's license or any sort of identification, yet the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition thinks that the individual law enforcement official that pulled the guy over should have let him go free. That's utterly ridiculous! It's also ridiculous to say the guy was pulled over because of the color of his skin. What kind of cheap journalist would print such biased trash without the other side of the story - I'm sure the guy was pulled over for a reason. Furthermore, what if the guy would have been a terrorist? Weren't a couple of the 9/11 participants pulled over and set free?